In Kensington Gardens I should have encountered thrice as many; but there I should also have seen more plain ones than here.

Not that Englishwomen _en masse_ are not better-looking than the French, but that these last are so skilful in concealing defects, and revealing beauties by the appropriateness and good taste in their choice of dress, that even the plain cease to appear so; and many a woman looks piquant, if not pretty, at Paris, thanks to her _modiste_, her _couturiere_, and her _cordonnier_, who, without their "artful aid," would be plain indeed.
It is pleasant to behold groups of well-dressed women walking, as only French women ever do walk, nimbly moving their little feet _bien chausse_, and with an air half timid, half _espiegle_, that elicits the admiration they affect to avoid.

The rich and varied material of their robes, the pretty _chapeaux_, from which peep forth such coquettish glances, the modest assurance--for their self-possession amounts precisely to that--and the ease and elegance of their carriage, give them attractions we might seek for in vain in the women of other countries, however superior these last may be in beauty of complexion or roundness of _contour_, for which French women in general are not remarkable.
The men who frequent the gardens of the Tuileries are of a different order to those met with in the Luxembourg.

They consist chiefly of military men and young fashionables, who go to admire the pretty women, and elderly and middle-aged ones, who meet in knots and talk politics with all the animation peculiar to their nation.

Children do not abound in the walks here, as in the Luxembourg; and those to be seen are evidently brought by some fond mother, proud of exhibiting her boys and girls in their smart dresses.
The Tuileries Gardens, so beautiful in summer, are not without their attractions in winter.